Abraxas
Of the two moons that orbit Scylla, Abraxax is the closest, smallest, and- in theory- the most habitable. A little smaller than Earth's moon, Abraxas is one of those rare lunar bodies that possessed necessary atmospheric, gravitic, and geological conditions to make terraforming possible. As the planet was slowly reshaped and built to hold life comfortable to the races of the Federation, scientists from the Revival Project proposed that Abraxas be used to hold all sorts of ancient, extinct Earth life, like dinosaurs and various kinds of giant plants. The proposal was approved and Abraxas became one of the largest nature preserves ever made. For a long time that's all Abraxas was- a preserve. The moon is a single-biome planetoid consisting entirely of vast, sweltering jungles kept healthy by several hundred large lakes, chock full of various kinds of flora and fauna from the Mesozoic era. As time went on people realized that, while being a preserve was all well and good, it could actually be used as something profitable. At first, people used and treated it like a safari tour, with professional guides bringing in wealthy tourists to ooh and ahh at the giant animals that hadn't existed for millions of years for a very high price. Later, enterprising minds would clear and secure sections of the jungle to be used as game reserves, allowing various types of big game hunters to come out and track whatever beast or beasts they wanted for hefty fees. In response to those developments, various animal rights groups would try to 'free' the animals, sometimes through sabotaging reserve stations (which tended to leave activists and hunters alike very, very dead) or smuggling animals offworld to try and get them to safer places (which, again, tended to leave lots of people dead). There were quite a few big fights over the whole thing, but all that stopped when the Wars began. While Abraxas had the potential to be useful during the Armageddon Wars, the wildlife saw to it that most factions kept their distance. It wasn't impossible to set up strongholds by any means, but those strongholds- unless very well hidden- would invariably be attacked by enemy forces, and whatever survived such assaults would be torn apart and eaten by various predators shortly thereafter- it got particularly bad when several species figured out how to wait for the Loyalists and Rebels to fight each other, and lay an ambush, only to spring on survivors moments after a conflict ended. This encouraged most factions to give up any attempt to settle or establish military fortifications, it just wasn't worth the effort. More than a few argue that it still isn't worth the effort, not since the animal life has had several centuries to build up their numbers, and the plant life has had time to grow over every manmade structure built. But that doesn't mean Abraxas is left alone, not by a long shot. Abraxas still holds a lot of value in the modern age. Aside from the obvious opportunities for hunters and poachers to net themselves massive kills and exotic trophies, the flora that coats the planetoid has all sorts of uses in pharmaceutical goods, especially drugs and poisons. It's also a popular spot for druids and wizards to gather exotic reagents and components for spells and rituals, and several Freelancer groups have in the past successfully settled in ruined Loyalist and Rebel strongholds and fortified them to serve as private bases for decades at a time before being abandoned due to loss or retirement. Furthermore, in recent years the moon has become a hotspot for archaeological teams in search of legends- rumors have spread across the Trifecta that Abraxas has been inhabited since before the Wars, by secretive groups of all sorts. Heretical cults hiding deep underground, tribal savages descended from abandoned armies, it's even been claimed that a hitherto unknown race of dinosaur-like Kemono live in the deepest and thickest jungles. Nobody's ever proven any of that of course, but the rumors persist even centuries later, and as civilization progresses, inquiring minds with fat wallets take it upon themselves to determine the truth of the matter. Scylla Back to Main Page